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Police chief unplugs Flock cameras after company ignores contract cancellation

By · Published by Everything Blog

In short

The Plymouth Police Department cut power cords to the automated license plate readers after Flock Safety failed to respond to written cancellation notices for over a week. City leaders had already suspended administrative user accounts following a unanimous council vote on September 22 to terminate the contract. The abrupt shutdown follows significant concerns over artificial intelligence travel flags and an erroneous Plymouth traffic stop triggered by an out-of-state administrative flaw.

Key points

  • Municipalities are taking manual measures to disable surveillance hardware when vendor co…: Municipalities are taking manual measures to disable surveillance hardware when vendor communication breaks down following contract terminations.
  • Nationwide deployment of over 300,000 Flock cameras faces heightened scrutiny due to offi…: Nationwide deployment of over 300,000 Flock cameras faces heightened scrutiny due to officer misuse and algorithmic tracking errors.
  • Neighboring Dayton similarly halted its automated camera operations after Flock allegedly…: Neighboring Dayton similarly halted its automated camera operations after Flock allegedly swapped hardware against the city's explicit directives.

Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1

Police Chief physically unplugs Flock cameras after the company ignores contract cancellation — city takes matters into its own hands amid privacy controversies

It's probably a good idea to put a 'Flock Sock' on them, just to be safe.

Plymouth City Council unanimously voted to end its Flock contract in September 2026, but the company failed to respond to demands to remove its cameras installed around the city. According to The Drive, the city informed Flock immediately about the cancelation, but it failed to respond even after a week. Because of this, Plymouth Police Chief Eric Fadden was forced to take matters into the city’s hands and physically disconnected the cameras’ power cords to ensure that they are non-functional.

“As you’re well aware, the City Council voted to discontinue the use of Flock ALPRs at the Sept. 22 meeting. On the morning of Sept. 23, we suspended all Plymouth user Flock accounts and notified Flock Safety of the Council’s decision. We followed up with a formal letter of cancellation via US Mail and email after consulting with our City Attorney’s…

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